USS Minnesota (BB-22)

This article is about the ship USS Minnesota. For the drug, see BB-22 (drug). For the WW2 Soviet bombers, see Yakovlev Yak-2 and Yakovlev Yak-4.
For other ships with the same name, see USS Minnesota.

USS Minnesota (BB-22) in 1907
History
United States
NameMinnesota
NamesakeMinnesota
BuilderNewport News Shipbuilding Company
Laid down27 October 1903
Launched8 April 1905
Commissioned9 March 1907
Decommissioned1 December 1921
Stricken10 November 1923
FateBroken up, 1924
General characteristics
Class and typeConnecticut-class battleship
Displacement
Length456 ft 4 in (139.09 m)
Beam76 ft 10 in (23.42 m)
Draft24 ft 6 in (7.47 m)
Installed power
Propulsion
Speed18 kn (21 mph; 33 km/h)
Complement827 officers and men
Armament
Armor
  • Belt: 6–9 in (152–229 mm)
  • Barbettes: 6–10 in (152–254 mm)
  • Turret Main: 8–12 in (203–305 mm)
  • Turret secondary: 7 in (178 mm)
  • Conning tower: 9 in (229 mm)

USS Minnesota (BB-22), the fifth of six Connecticut-class pre-dreadnought battleships, was the first ship of the United States Navy in honor of the 32nd state. She was laid down at the Newport News Shipbuilding Company of Newport News, Virginia in October 1903, launched in April 1905, and commissioned into the US fleet in March 1907, just four months after the revolutionary British battleship HMS Dreadnought entered service. Minnesota was armed with a main battery of four 12-inch (305 mm) guns and a secondary battery of twenty 7 and 8 in (178 and 203 mm) guns, unlike Dreadnought, which carried an all-big-gun armament that rendered ships like Minnesota obsolescent.

Shortly after she entered service, Minnesota joined the Great White Fleet for its circumnavigation of the globe in 1908–1909. The years from 1909 to 1912 were uneventful, but thereafter the ship began to become involved in conflicts in the Caribbean. She supported efforts to put down an insurrection in Cuba in 1912 and patrolled the coast of Mexico in 1913–1914 during the Mexican Revolution. In 1916, the ship was placed in reserve, though she quickly returned to service when the United States entered World War I in April 1917. During the war, she trained naval personnel; while cruising off the eastern coast of the United States in September 1918, she struck a naval mine laid by a German U-boat. The extensive damage required lengthy repairs that kept her out of service for the rest of the war. She helped to return American soldiers from Europe in 1919 before resuming her training ship duties in 1920–1921, before being decommissioned in December 1921 and broken up for scrap at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in 1924.